Seven Quick Takes: Truth, Cold Bug, and Babies!

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Hello! Happy Friday!

Last week I didn’t write because I had a nasty cold/virus bug thing. It wasn’t the plague. :) But I had some dental work two weeks ago to replace an old filing, and some grossness must have come out during the work and flown right up to my left sinus cavity. For teh first few days it was just sort of sore throat, but then it became a nasty cold that had me pretty well sidelined. Sigh. At least I can take cold meds now—I couldn’t pre-transplant!

Anyway, mostly over now, which is good. Yay!

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This next bit is something that’s been gnawing at me for awhile, but it came to full flower yesterday. That’s the movement of people to not tell the truth. Not necessarily intending to lie, per se, but to not be accurate with their words.

During COVID, I’ve noticed this a few different times, and especially now with vaccinations. There seems to be a persistent myth—and it is a myth—that people who are immunocompromised can’t receive the vaccinations.

We can. I have.

So I’ve taken to calling people out on this—nicely!—when I see it. yesterday on twitter, I did this. The response I got was (and I’m paraphrasing): “well, we only have 140 characters, so we don’t have space to make distinctions.” I was told (and this is a quote) that I was “mincing words.”

No. I was being accurate.

The words we use do matter. That’s not just because I’m a writer and words are what I use to earn my living, but I think we all know that words can be dangerous or healing. Truth or lies matter, and facts matter.

It matters that people believe what’s true, which is that immunocompromised people can get the vaccine. Some people cannot get it, just like all people cannot get every vaccine. (I can’t get the shingles vaccine, because it’s a live vaccine.)

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Being told that it’s mincing words to want to be accurate—to be truthful—was very strange to me. (besides the fact that to “mince words” means to not be truthful or to beat around the bush. When people say “let’s not mince words”, they mean, “let’s be totally honest.” )

When I studied journalism and wrote for my college paper, the goal in writing as to get across the facts in as few words as possible, because all journalists (well, and all writers) know about words counts and space. To say that a word or character limit doesn’t allow you to be honest is…..weird.

I think it also bothers me as a Dominican. The motto (well one of the mottoes) of the order is veritas— “truth.” The order was founded to spread God’s truth throughout the world, not the “truth” that the Albigensians believed. Truth is important, in every sense. Jesus called himself the way, the truth, and the life. Truth isn’t “mincing words”.

So that’s been something I’ve been thinking about lately.

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Another thing I’ve been thinking about? BABIESSSS.

Here’s some Patty:

“Mom, I LOVE PAPER TOWELS!”

She’s 13 1/2 months old, is working on more teeth, and is walking like a champ. She can also walk while holding her mom’s phone and have a “conversation” (in baby talk) with you. And she kisses the screen, which I think is adorable. Her big siblings have gone off to school, leaving her and Johnny (seen above) at home with mom—at least until Johnny starts pre-school in a few weeks. (He won’t go every day).

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And in other BABY NEWS—My sister is pregnant! I’m an auntie! Yay!!!!! This is my first niece or nephew and I am insanely excited. Of course baby blanket knitting will begin as soon as my sister lets me know what colors she wants. I’ll be making the same one I made for Patty, just different colors.

Patty snuggled under her blanket. <3

Since Mel and her husband live in Colorado, I won’t have to worry so much about using wool, like I did with Patty, who lives in Texas! I kept worrying that she’d overheat under it, but she seems to do A-OK with it and takes her blanket everywhere, which makes me very happy. I hope that my niece or nephew love her/his baby blanket just as much!

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I’ve been re-reading/re-watching the Harry Potter series. (And the baby’s bedroom is Harry Potter themed!) And while I do that, I’ve done some HP knitting….

For Christmas last year, Mel got me Knitting Magic, a book of Harry Potter projects. These are the horcrux washcloths, so there is a set of seven. I started with Harry, and then made Hufflepuff’s Cup.

Hufflepuff’s cup—it’s not as easy to see as Harry, but it’s there!

Next up will be Ravencaw’s diadem. My Ravelry notes are here.

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The local school district has started back here, and Patty’s siblings all went back on Tuesday:

Has school started back where you are?

Dominicana

Happy Feast of St. Dominic!

Here are some links regarding Dominican life I’ve written over the years:

Why I’m A Dominican

St. Dominic, The Innkeeper, and Twenty-First Century Preaching (which I wrote last year, but is super relevant right now!)

A Day In the Life of A Lay Dominican

Why I'm a Dominican

(For How a Lay Dominican Prays, go here) 

So, all throughout this long Dominican saints series, you may be wondering why I'm a Dominican. Well.....that's sort of an accident. 

I was unknowingly surrounded by Dominicans in elementary school. My favorite elementary school teacher had been a Dominican sister. The sisters at the convent on our parish grounds? Dominicans. My family always had a devotion to the rosary, which was given to us by....Dominicans. (You should know that by now, at least!) I always have a rosary in my purse, and my bedposts have always bedecked with rosaries. The rosary is my favorite prayer. If I say I'm praying for you, it usually means you're getting a decade of the rosary, or, in some cases, my entire rosary. 

I had always been drawn to the Liturgy of the Hours. I remember reading about them in one of my prayer books as a teenager, and I wished I knew how to pray this mysterious set of prayers. Back then, there wasn't internet like there is now--there were no websites to visit. 

I've always loved reading and study. Well, OK, not math study. (Sorry, Dad.) But learning has always been fun for me. I read our World Book Encyclopedia for fun. Sometimes I click around on Wikipedia for fun. I'm a nerd, yeah, but I like expanding my knowledge. Unless it's math. :) 

My patron saint for Confirmation was St. Therese, and I was definitely drawn to the Carmelites. As a child of John Paul II, the idea of redemptive suffering, of the meaning of suffering, was something I was attracted to, and something the Carmelites seemed to know a lot about. St. Teresa of Avila is also a saint I admire. 

So, all of this was sort of conspiring to lead me to the Dominicans--even the Carmelites. :) 

In 2010, I was looking for a way to deepen my spiritual life. I wanted more than just the prayers I was saying. I wanted a deeper, more cohesive prayer life. I knew some orders had third orders or lay associates. So I began to do a little web searching. 

I found the third order Dominican website (now we're called Lay Dominicans, but I still like being called Third Order Dominicans...I'm old-school). It talked about the four pillars of the life: prayer, study, community, apostolate. A lay Dominican prays a daily rosary, and the liturgy of the hours. A Lay Dominican loves study and the pursuit of truth. Apostolates bring the truth we study out into the world, and community binds us together. 

This sounded pretty good. Where could I find a chapter? 

Oh, two miles from my office. Really. 

At St. Patrick Church, which was run by Dominicans, there was a Lay Dominican chapter. I had also been toying with the idea of a new parish. 

So on my lunch hour that day, I went to St. Patrick's, and attended Mass. I loved the priests. I loved the way the Mass was said, reverently and prayerfully. I loved that confession was offered every day!

I went into the office and filled out a registration form. Two weeks later, I went to my first Lay Dominican meeting. 

I made life promises to the order last December, so they can't kick me out now! 

So, yes, I made up my mind quickly. But I'd been around Dominicans all my life, and hadn't known it. I knew, instinctively, that my personality and temperament fit into this order the best. Third Order life, to me, is a deepening of my instinctual desires. I have the Liturgy of the Hours, I have the richness of Dominican community--which is almost 800 years old!--and I have a place where my spiritual life can flourish under the rule St. Dominic gave his first followers.  It may not be as easy to identify as Franciscan or Carmelite or Benedictine spirituality, and one of the reasons I wrote the series on Dominican saints was to get some of them out there. We can be sort of forgotten. But Dominicans really are deeply embedded in the history of the church. 

For more Dominican saints and blesseds, you can go here.. If you'd like to investigate being a Lay Dominican, you can go here.